“If everyone performs their function, victory is assured.”
Every Overwatch player knows that these words belong to turret-loving Satya “Symmetra” Vaswani, the voice of whom is provided by actress Anjali Bhimani. Bhimani is known for her warm and appreciative attitude towards both the Overwatch fandom and those whose passion for her work spans beyond voicing Symmetra, and she kindly agreed to talk to me about some of her acting work.
We began, of course, by talking about Overwatch, and how active and appreciative the fandom is towards not only the game’s voice actors, but also to Blizzard and, more importantly, one another:
“You know [Overwatch] itself is extraordinary, and the graphics are amazing and it’s super fun to play–even though I’m terrible at it!–but the lore that they’ve created is so vast…that’s the kind of stuff I fall in love with even more than the game. I’m so intrigued by the characters they created, and their backstories, and I think other people are too. People are so kind and creative…they’re kind to one another, and I think we need that kindness now more than ever.”
We then began to talk about the characters themselves, and how wonderful it is to have such a large cast of playable characters within Overwatch. The diversity of Overwatch’s playable characters is just as important to Bhimani as it is to Lucio’s VA, Jonny Cruz, as she explained to me:
“One of the things that makes Overwatch so enjoyable for me is that you are seeing heroes of all different ethnic backgrounds, different sexual orientations, different genders, different ages…I mean, you look at Ana and, you know, whoever expected to have a sixty year old Egyptian sniper as their hero? There’s just something really beautiful about that, and I think it’s important, too.”
But the experience of voicing Symmetra doesn’t just stop at the recording booth for Bhimani, and I soon realised that she has a relationship with her fans that extends far beyond one of forced politeness. “Seeing this fanart and seeing people come up with these gorgeous pieces of art that I would hang on my wall, I’m just constantly impressed by it all. It’s amazing.” She went on to tell me all about the specific kinds of fanart that she gets sent, and explained that one of her favourite parts of every new Overwatch update is that it inspires people to create new fanart, which they’ll send her via one of her social media accounts. I was quite taken aback by the lengths to which she remembered each artist’s online handle and what they’d drawn for her, and there was so much passion and warmth in her voice as she spoke about people sending her hand-drawn comics and illustrations.
We then talked about what actually goes on in the recording booth, and how much freedom Blizzard gives their performers during a recording session:
“Well, you know, they give you the lines in the session, and they have a voice acting director, Andrea Toyias (who is awesome!) and she and Michael [Chu, Overwatch’s Lead Writer] will be present to give direction and decide how they want the particular lines to sound. I don’t see all the animations, but they’ll give me an idea of what it’s going to look like. We do sessions about once every six to eight months, depending on the events and the new lines that need recording. They’ll also bring us in when a character changes…like when Symmetra got revamped, they brought me in to record her new lines.”
And of course, Bhimani isn’t just known for her work as Symmetra. She’s contributed her voice to Bethesda’s Fallout 4, and also starred in well-known sitcoms Silicon Valley and Modern Family, along with a plethora of other stage and screen work.
She likens her connection to her fans via Twitter to that of her connection to a theatre audience, explaining how the reaction can be more immediate and emotional:
“I mostly did theatre for the first ten or so years of my career. There’s nothing like performing in front of a live audience and having that relationship for the time that you are in the theatre together. And then, if you get to meet people afterwards, wherever it is–in the lobby, at the bar, when you’re walking home–that is so exciting, to find out what they took away from it! Because we just had a connection…for an hour and a half to three hours or, you know, however long, we were all in that room together. And I want to know what that connection was, and how you felt. It’s the same thing when I do television, when I do voice acting, but it’s a little harder to engage with fans then, which is why I’m grateful for things like Twitter and Facebook or whatnot, so that I can [engage]. I want to know! I just really want to know what people took away from it. (laughing) I just love people! I always have.”
Overall, I had an immense amount of fun chatting with Anjali Bhimani about her ever-growing career and the fans of her work who inspire her to push forward and continue to create and develop herself in everything performative.
To find out more about Anjali Bhimani’s work, you can visit her website or her Twitter page.
(You should send her photos of cute animals for the best responses.)
She also recently launched a “fun-size” series of positivity vlogs, where you can ask her questions and help spread some love:
Some of the coverage you find on Cultured Vultures contains affiliate links, which provide us with small commissions based on purchases made from visiting our site. We cover gaming news, movie reviews, wrestling and much more.
